I really enjoyed working with these different programs. I thought it invoked other avenues of clearer thought for me. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that Twitter is extremely similar to that of Facebook wall posts, which is familiar to a large majority of the younger generation. There is also a familiar theme of staying connected among these three and Facebook or the other sites some of use, like Myspace or even email in general. The way that Twitter was set up more or less disappointed me. I felt as though we went from stressful works that had a trillion different triggers for our senses to a work that had a cute bird and a box for writing text-like messages for the world to see. I did enjoy the work because of the stress free aspect, but I was already conditioned to expect the intense nature of the other works. Twittervision draws the viewer in immediately and you find yourself intently waiting for the next bubble to pop up. The cute little bird has a new activity of jumping from place to place delivering you the text-like messages from their original location. I remember watching it in class and seeing someone pop up from Richmond, Virginia and I instantly felt it become more real and personable. This work also allows for ads to pop up, which I found interesting. It speaks to how inundated the world has become to material and financial opportunities. These ads are for things like news channels, radio stations, etc. The only thing that would make this more interesting is if you could see a story being developed by these tweets that are being shown. I suppose a story could be developed by chance, but the likelihood of it being a cohesive story is slim to none. There would seemingly be no beginning or end. This could relate back to the work Implementation because it’s as if we’re seeing parts of a random story as we come upon them. We would have to wait to stumble upon another bit of the story in the future. The twitervision, however, provides an obvious way to go back and search for the rest of the story by including a writer and potentially their picture. The last work, Twistori, reminded me so much of We Feel Fine and I’m sure it’s completely obvious why, with the similar structure and content. One of the main things I found interesting is how they both provide the reader with surprising results after an emotion is clicked on. This morning I went back and viewed Twistori and I clicked on “Love.” The first line that came up was something to the effect of, “I could kill myself – I LOVE meetings.” These works all force the reader to disarm any stereotypical answer for emotions that are being sought out. Don’t choose an emotion with expectations of a certain response, because you may get just the opposite. These three works were a good way to end the semester because they were way more relaxing and they were something very familiar to most of us in the classroom.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Be safe and good luck on your projects!